Sing Along With Keef, Part 2: “Senator From Tennessee”

I’ve talked several times before about what a cultural sensation Kefauver’s televised hearings on organized crime became, to a degree that’s honestly difficult for a modern audience to comprehend. The hearings inspired movies and TV shows. They made Kefauver into a national figure, allowing him to be a game-show celebrity guest and a leading candidate for the Presidency. They also led to multiple songs being written in Kefauver’s honor.

Last week, I wrote about “Estes Is Bestes,” a hillbilly tribute to “crime-bustin’ Estes” that was explicitly written as a “Kefauver for President fight song.” This week’s entry, “Senator from Tennessee,” isn’t a campaign song – in fact, it doesn’t mention Kefauver by name at all – but it is very much inspired by him and the work of his crime committee.

According to Peter La Chappelle in his book I’d Fight the World: A Political History of Old-Time, Country, and Hillbilly Music, “Senator from Tennessee” was originally performed by a Nashville quartet named The Dinning Brothers, who debuted it at Kefauver’s Presidential campaign kickoff at the Ryman Auditorium in December 1951. The following year, the song was recorded by a pair of bigger-name acts: one by rockabilly pioneer Hardrock Gunter, and the other a duet between Dinah Shore and Tex Williams. Shore was both a Tennessee native and a TV star in her own right, having recently gotten her own show on NBC.

Let’s listen to Dinah’s and Tex’s version (Hardrock Gunter’s version has a few slightly different lyrics but is substantially similar):

The song drew its inspiration from the thousands of letters that Kefauver and his committee received during the crime hearings, from citizens who wanted to inform the committee about criminal activities in their own cities and towns. In this case, the singer has a slightly different motivation: she wants the Kefauver Committee to investigate her no-good, cheating boyfriend.

I’m gonna write a letter to Congress
Up in Washington, D.C.
Gonna mark it for the attention
Of the Senator from Tennessee

(Tex: Well, here’s a stamp!)

Gonna tell him that you been gamblin’
With my love, and hope that he
Will call you up before the Committee
Of the Senator from Tennessee

I know he’s gonna investigate you
(Tex: I got nothin’ to hide)
You done wrong time after time
And though I never could hate you
(Tex: That’s good)
What you’ve done is really a crime

As best as I can tell, the Kefauver Committee didn’t pry into the affairs of wayward boyfriends (unless they also happened to be members of a criminal gang). But I do think the song taps into one of the reasons why Kefauver’s reputation soared in the wake of the hearings: people really did feel a personal connection to him after he was beamed into their living rooms on a nightly basis. (Today, we call these “parasocial relationships.”) And although the song was obviously facetious, it spoke – as “Estes is Bestes” also did – to Kefauver’s reputation as a crime-fighting David who took down the Goliaths of the mob.

I should note that, although Dinah remarks “I know him well” about Kefauver in the song – and though she was a Tennessean and staunch Democrat – I can’t find any evidence that she actually campaigned for him, at least not in 1952. As for Tex Williams, he remained nonpartisan in that election; he appeared on the cover of Cash Box magazine holding a signing reading “VOTE AS YOU PLEASE, BUT PLEASE VOTE!”, accompanied by a statement that he had “joined the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in not taking any sides and just urging the folks to get out and vote.”

None of the version of “Senator From Tennessee” wound up charting, alas. And as we know, all the TV appearances and songs in the world weren’t enough to allow Kefauver to claim the nomination in 1952. The crime-fighting David might have been able to take on the gangs, but he couldn’t slay the Goliath of a party machine that hated him.

Someday, I hope to find a song about the Senator from Tennessee that dared to find a rhyme for “Kefauver.” If I do, you can believe I will share it here.

UPDATE (December 2025): I mentioned above that “Senator from Tennessee” isn’t a campaign song. And yet, there are numerous stories of Kefauver using it as a campaign song in 1952. He played it at many of his rallies, and even handed out sheet music of the song during the Democratic convention in Chicago.

But the version that the Kefauver campaign used wasn’t the one that I talked about above. Rather, they produced a new version of the song with the same tune, but different and more campaign-appropriate lyrics.

According to the Kefauver Beacon, a newsletter distributed to members of the Kefauver for President clubs, the senator’s staff wrote a version with “campaign words” to capitalize on the song’s existing familiarity. A singer named Trudy Adams debuted the campaign version of the song during an episode of the CBS television show “Presidential Timber” on April 4, 1952. Here are the lyrics, as published by the Kefauver Bulletin:

There’s a man the country is calling
To preserve democracy
He’s the man who’s destined to lead us,
He’s the senator from Tennessee.

Estes Kefauver is our selection
For the U.S. Presidency
So let’s give our hearty approval
To the senator from Tennessee!

Of all the Democrats in the nation
He’s the one to nominate
‘Cause he’s won the most admiration
He’s a man who really is great.

With a coonskin cap as his symbol,
He’s made friends with you and me.
So let’s give a lease on the White House
To the senator from Tennessee!

Is it a little hokey? Sure. But as campaign songs go, it’s not bad.